/* ===================

AX2E (AXESCON XACML 2.0 Engine) is the Java authorization engine, which implements OASIS XACML 2.0 standard.
Copyright (C) 2007 AXESCON LLC

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA


Contact: AXESCON LLC - info{at}axescon.com

 =================== */
package axescon.xacml.api;

import axescon.xacml.api.DuplicateIdReferenceException;
import axescon.xacml.api.PolicyFactory;
import axescon.xacml.api.XacmlException;
import axescon.xacml.model.policy.IdReference;
import axescon.xacml.model.policy.PolicyObject;

/**
 * @author argyn
 *         Date: Oct 6, 2005
 *         Responsibilities: lookup a policy object by reference. This is a generic interface to be implemented
 * by stores, which can lookup policies by reference.
 */
public interface PolicyReferenceStore {

    /**
     * resolves a policy object by reference
     * @param idRef reference
     * @return policy object
     * @throws XacmlException
     * @throws DuplicateIdReferenceException when more than object has the same reference
     */
    public PolicyObject resolve(IdReference idRef) throws XacmlException,
            DuplicateIdReferenceException;

    /**
     * gets policy factory. this method can be used by store to build policy objects.
     *
     * @return policy factory
     */
    PolicyFactory getPolicyFactory();

    /**
     * sets policy factory, which can be used to buid policy objects.
     * @param policyFactory
     */
    void setPolicyFactory(PolicyFactory policyFactory);


    /**
     * validates store configuration.
     * @param pe policy evaluator, which can be used to validate policy elements
     * @throws XacmlException
     */
    void validate(PolicyEvaluator pe)throws XacmlException;
}
